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Newly diagnosed patient seeking diet advise

tellspring

Posts: 16
Joined: May 2013

May 25, 2013 - 11:44 am

Thanks a bunch for those of you provided great advise already. My wife is 42 and was just diagnosied with rectal cancer and spread to lymph nodes. While we're consulting specialists for treatment consulting, I want to ask if any of you can provide guidence about diet before, during and after treatment. I expect her raidiology treatment to start in about 10 days. Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks a bunch and sincerely wish your family all the best and may God please bless all the nice people around here.

I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING RECTAL CANCER FOR A YEAR: RECTAL CANCER USES SUGAR TO LIVE! STARVE THAT THING NOW! IT CREATES ACID AND BURNS IT'S WAY INTO THE BODY. IT IS INVASIVE. TO STARVE IT, YOU STOP EATING ALL CARBOHYDRATES, STOP EATING SUGAR. GO ON A KETOGENIC DIET (LOOK IT UP) VERY HARD TO DO. THIS WORKS. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO ADD THE DIABETIC DRUG METFORMIN. YOUR TUMOR WILL "GO TO SLEEP". THIS WILL BUY YOU TIME. GET STARTED ON RADIATION AND XELODA (CHEMO PILL). YOUR HAIR WILL NOT FALL OUT. THEN HAVE THE TUMOR CUT OUT... THIS IS ALL MEDICAL SCIENCE HAS, AT THIS TIME. (REMEMBER SCIENCE?) DO NOT LISTEN TO ANYTHING ELSE. YOU ARE JUST FOOLING AROUND WITH DEATH. DO NOT DELAY. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF SURVIVORS OUT THERE. GOOD LUCK.

Sorry, but I have never heard of adding "diabetic" drugs to put a "tumor" to sleep. Giving "medical advise" to newly diagnosed can be very confusing. There are several avenues to treating "colorectal" cancer depending on where the tumor is located. Many do not get radiation. Surgery first depending on location.

As far as diet, that seems to be all over the place. Consulting with a dietician at the hospital for direction depending upon your needs, tumor location and treatment and research what is right for you and your particular situation. Telling people do this, do that, it will make your "tumor go to sleep" it will "buy you time" , etc. may be against medical advise.

Guess you just have to do what is right for you and not everyone falls into one category.

I really enjoyed reading your reply, its something similar to what i wrote a while ago. but your reply motivated me to reply, I have been focused on othersites and projects and have been chased away from CSN due to my very extreme ways. I got a lovelly comment on my extreme colorectal blog from helen about her book. I just wanted to share with you and everyone how kind fate is. I reply to help someone know knows less, in the process I attract someone who is equally passionate about the ketogenic diet. Reading helens book, which I purchased reminded me of something serious.

I had been doing ketogenic and my cea was 2.8, I stopped doing ketogenic, 6 weeks later my ce WAS 23 and I have / had a 1 centimenter tumour recurr in the liver.

What do you think I am going to do ? I am back on the diet!

hugs,

Pete

PS I include details of the ketogenic ebook, so that other can read it if they desire, PM me is you want some excerpts emailed over. It is nice, simple comprehsive read, but not to technical. the exercise recommednation from doug mcguff are also spot on.

The first thing you should do, is get other opinions from colorectal surgeons that are not of the same group or organization as your present ones. That is of great importance if one desires to survive! Do not begin treatment of any type until you have garnered other opinions!

A cancer cell is nothing more than a normal cell that’s been damaged beyond it’s ability to receive the body’s instruction regarding how to remain alive. That “defective cell” is for whatever reason, ignored by our immune system, and left in our body. The defective cell begins to survive by the fermentation process, using glucose (sugar) and expelling Lactic acid. The Lactic acid is converted back into glucose by our liver, and is re-entered into our system.

Since the cancer cell uses more glucose than a “normal cell”, the cancer is said to “steal” the glucose from our good cells. Our goods cells suffer due to this phenomena, and if we try to “starve” the cancer cells by eliminating glucose, we very effectively starve our good cells first, allowing the cancer to have more power than our good cells.

Eating a well-rounded diet, and things that one’s body feels good about having, is much more beneficial than any restrictive diet. We should attempt to help our body fight cancer, not fight our body’s needs.

As far as the rapid move to Radiation?

You should really, really get other opinions first. Many times, the physician attempts to “save” the patient from having to have a colostomy by using means other than surgery to remove a massive tumor. Doing so has not proven to be of any great benefit with the fight against cancer; removing a tumor via surgery is always the bet recourse. Having an Ostomy is not life’s end; trust me.

Not as simple as that john. If there is not enough glucose to feed normal cells, they switch to a ketone based metabolism. Cancer generally has problems using ketone bodies for energy. You can quite happily live with zero carbs in your diet. eg: inuit eskimoes.

There are plenty of studies on cancer and diet. Normal well balanced diet does little. Extremes such as ketogenic, high protein, low protein & low fat, and even a diet based on almost pure sugar all have been found to retard cancer growth. In mice anyway. The extremes work because they remove some component that the cancer needs to replicate I suspect. ketogenic has my vote.

Theories are fine, but a cancer cell is a cancer cell, and it begins it’s life via the fermentation process. They can argue till’ blue in the face, if a large cancerous tumor can survive without glucose…. but all it is now, is a hypothesis. Donate cash to further the studies!!

Oh… my… what will they do with all the PET scan equipment, and chemical treatments that rely on the fact a cancer cell uptakes glucose as a primary life-providing substance for itself?

(I need a break from these forums…; this is my encouragement.)

To all:

Remember to research thoroughly to afford yourself the best direction in your fight against cancer. If it defies reason and biological fact, avoid it.

Oh no you don't!!! The newbies out here need your experience and balanced opinions. Most of us know that removing sugar entirely from your diet isn't going to do a darn thing against a cancer cell. Please... do people really think it's that easy?? All of Rick's doctors at MGH, Tuft, Norris Cotton and Dana Farber pretty much laughed when we were newbies and mentioned this. They ALL told us that going on a special diet when you have cancer is like shutting the barn door after the cows got out. Even so, Rick DID remove white bread and sugar, and started taking tons of supplements, Chinese herbs, etc., and it didn't help one bit. I threw away hundreds of dollars of that stuff after he passed. So as I look back, he missed out on many of his favorite foods that he really could have enjoyed to the end. I'm usually more reserved about my opinions on diet, but that naive post from Mike just hit a nerve. So stay around John, please. And Craig, if you're reading this, there are a lot of newbies out here lately that could use your experience and insight as well.

Cynthia, I feel sorry for Rick. Thanks for sharing with us your experience. I do expect some different opinions here since this is not a simple case. My wife herself is a pharmacist in hospital, but after taking care of patients for so many years you don't have a straightforward idea on diet.

To us, we have three young children and surviving is everyhing, so we will go to the direction of more strict diet without loosing all the meaning of life.

is to eat as healthy as I can, but not to the point of making myself miserable. I still have the occasional cocktail, eat candy once in a while, and love a good burger. The two years that I was of and on chemo, I didn't drink at all, but beyond that, I ate whatever I could tolerate. I had lost almost 40 pounds, and I had to be very careful to keep on a little weight. I am stage 4, but have been NED for 17 months. That could change at any time, of course, but for the moment I'm enjoying my life, and that includes an assortment of foods, 90% healthy and the rest perhaps less so (or not at all...I'm a big fan of Hot Tamales).

Ann Alexandria

PS I do eat a lot more of the so-called "cancer fighting foods", like cabbage, kale, and shitaake mushrooms, but I like them anyway so it's no hardship. If I hated them, I wouldn't eat them. Based on what I've read, the greatest role played by diet (possibly) is prior to actually having cancer. I don't know the research on the extreme diets so can't speak to those.

It's been non-stop for 20 months. 60 chemo treatments, two surgeries, a y90 procedure to the liver.

It’s a real roller coaster.

I tried the diet thing. I explored juicing. I read the Gerson diet and theories.

I've had arguments over this and also have been looked at funny by many people.

However, I truly believe the advice from one very young dietician.

"Reduce sugars if you can. Reduce unhealthy foods if you can... however, you MUST eat whatever sounds good, whenever it sounds good!"

You are about to head into your treatments. Your taste buds may change. Your feelings and emotions will change. You're ability to eat and drink may change and your ability to keep it down, or keep it in may change.

Add fruit and more veggies to your diet if you can... (the more colorful the better) but for me, I've been eating whatever I can, and whatever sounds good... whenever I can.

I was told 6-7 months to live by my first doctor. I look at 20 months as another month of success... and I'm planning on plenty more!!!

But, I love a Whopper Junior now and then, I love ice cream and I crave some pretty strange foods at times. Almost like an expecting mother, in her third trimester.

i am doing the ketogenic diet, its got compelling science in my opinion. my opinion is gernally different to many here.

if you are interested in constructive discussions about implementing this diet, search for ketogenic diet and colonchat.

if your interested in a more cvonservative approach to your cancer treatment this forum is the perfect place to be, you will not find a more caring bunch of people.

that said, science and therapies are evolving day by day.

the insulin info raised by tony is excellent, well worth reading.

alas stage 4 is supposed to be terminal, i believe our personal treatment decisions can improve our odds of survival considerable beyond the standard of care.

it starts with google, all the references of ketogenic diet have been provided months ago here. noone on this forum is doing to my knowledge so their opinions are just opinions. experience and results, well they are different animals.

you have a chance to seriously consider you treatment options, i encourge you to do so.

I have done very well with experimental german therapies, if your interested look at my blog or ren's

just google peter trayhurn and colorectal, you will see the top 300 alternative therapies i have tried in the last 3 years, I say take your pick, they all have merit, some more so than others. it depends on your specific clinical needs. these can be assessed by your doctors, i suggest getting international medical opinions if you have funds and are open to that idea. america is alongway behind in rectal cancer treatment options, just like australia. pm me if you want more details.

hugs,

Pete

ps the ketogenic diet is not the be all and end all, so far it did not prevent my recurrence 2, that said it does not mean the science is without merit, i am still trying it, and deciding if its a worthwhile long term strategy. to use the word long term strategy in the context of stage 4 is a rarity

I am using doctor coys strategies, his test accurately predicted my recurrence 2, alas, my doctors could not come up with strategies. but we are working on it. its a good read in my medical references library, only 4 pages. its tme for coconut oil for breakfast.

We went to the Zone diet and then the Med Diet. The Zone diet and Med Diet are not that different. The big idea behind the Zone diet is to eat healthy, and the one time you do not eat healthy, do not beat your self up over it. The next meal you can be back in the Zone. (I just saved everyone $20 and reading 300 pages. lol) The Zone is an atitude about food and eating ratios of Vegetables, Fruit, Carbos, and Meat. With the Zone attitude the Med Diet was easy to switch to. I limit the foods not good for us, but do not exclude them. (I eat ice cream once a month.)

We all have the need to build up our immune system once we have had chemo. Supplements made sense to me for this added push. Juicing also made sense to me for the added beenfit of the micro and macro nutrients.

The Extreme Diets may work for some people. It makes sense if you know your cancer is feeding on a specific thing, ie sugar, carbos or what ever, to eliminate or minimize that food type. (We barely eat sugar. This weekend was not an example of our normal. lol) There are many good studies that show Stage IV patients that go on a well balanced diet can have a good progress against cancer.

Many of the "Extremes" also come with price tag versus eating a balanced diet. Many supplements come with a price tag also. My opinion is to stay away from things that seem to good to be true. When one's "Naturalist" starts recommending blue berries licked by a particular spider monkey in the deep jungles of Indonesia. Maybe it is time to start questioning things.

If you're Stage IV, enjoy yourself, you know? if you've got 5 years or less, give or take, go for those Lindt chocolates. Sure, eat healthily, but don't suffer and force yourself to eat Weetabix because it's good for you. Really! If you're a foodie (or your wife is), don't deny yourself that pleasure.

Yes, eat healthily. I may have inadvertently gone slightly ketogenic due to all the milk I was drinking with my cookies... can't really say.

I went no additives, to reduce the strain on my liver. No soda, no chemical crap. No alcohol either during hard core chemo. Any science behind this? No, but in the US, a lot of our prepared foods have a lot of chemicals in them and I tried to avoid these products. I do scratch cooking anyway because I enjoy it but more than ever if I did buy anything prepared, I read the labels carefully and tried to minimize additives. Surprisingly, this was quite possible. I bought salt cured pork products (no nitrites/nitrates, which probably gave me cancer anyway - Oscar Meyer wieners and Armour hotdogs were the chicken nuggets of the 60s and 70s for all of us Gen-X ers. Who knows what chicken nuggets wlll do in 20 years to today's kids?? But i digress) and tried to buy baked goods with a short shelf life (not a six month expiry date.) etc.

And during the growing season, fresh produce.

The Cancer Fighting Kitchen by Rebecca Katz is great. I found that many of the supposedly cancer fighting foods are my staples, so they didnt' do any good!

I lost a lot of weight during my liquid chemo phase, so saw a nutritionist and she gave me tips (American Cancer Society has a nutritional guide) to add calories - add powdered milk for extra protein, add oil, etc. And the cookies, when I could tolerate them, added calories in a very nice way.

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